The best Jimmy John’s orders and menu hacks are all spoken instructions, not secret menu items: ask for the Unwich, scoop the center out of the bread, add extra meat and Jimmy Peppers, order the day-old loaf near closing, and spend your rewards before you pay. Jimmy John’s builds every sandwich to order on French bread with toppings that come off separately, so the default build is only a starting point. Here are twelve orders worth memorizing and the one modification that makes each one work.
Most of these take thirty seconds of counter talk. The rest just need you to know the words the crew already uses.
Table of Contents
- Best Jimmy John’s Orders and Menu Hacks at a Glance
- 1. The Plain Smoked Turkey and Swiss
- 2. The Tuna Crunch
- 3. The Big John
- 4. The Chicken Salami with basil and tomato
- 5. The Pepe
- 6. The J.J.
- 7. The Hawaiian
- 8. The Billy Club
- 9. The Vito
- 10. The Muffaletta
- 11. The #2 with a Snack-Style Upgrade
- 12. The Build-Your-Own Lunch Hack
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Conclusion
Best Jimmy John’s Orders and Menu Hacks at a Glance
Match the order to the situation first, then apply the hack in the third column. Everything here comes off the standard menu or a standard modification, so nothing needs a special request form.
| Situation | Order | The hack that makes it better |
|---|---|---|
| Dependable weekday lunch | Plain Smoked Turkey and Swiss | Add avocado, hold the mayo |
| Hungriest person in the group | Big John | Scoop the bread, ask for extra roast beef |
| Maximum flavor, minimum fuss | No. 9 Italian Night Club | Ask for it chopped and restuffed |
| A group that wants to share | Muffaletta | Ask for a half, eat it with forks |
| Lowest-carb option | Unwich of the No. 7 Spicy East Coast Italian | No bread, add double meat |
| Cooking dinner from a bread budget | Day-old loaf | Ask near closing, toast it at home |
| Picky eater at the table | Billy Club | Easy lettuce, dressing on the side |
| Low-carb and bread-free | Kosher dill pickle build | Hollow the pickle, fill it like a sub |
1. The Plain Smoked Turkey and Swiss
Start here when you want a balanced sandwich with nothing to argue about. Smoked turkey, Swiss, provolone, lettuce, tomato, and mayo on a toasted sub roll is the order most people mean when they say plain.
The hack is the add-on list, not the base. Ask for avocado and a few Jimmy Peppers, then say hold the mayo. Turkey on its own is fairly lean, so losing the mayo is where the calories actually go.
I order this one more than anything else on the board, mostly because it survives a two-hour lunch break. Nothing about it wilts into a mess by noon.
2. The Tuna Crunch
The Tuna Crunch is the least meat-forward sandwich on the menu and the most underestimated one. It is a tuna salad sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and mayo, and the crunch comes from the bread being toasted, not from anything inside it.
To protect that texture, keep the cucumber on the side. Wet cucumber plus tuna salad plus mayo is how a good sandwich turns soggy by the second half. Ask for extra pickles instead, since they hold up fine.
For more flavor, add a shake of the hot peppers and a light drizzle of oil and vinegar on top of the tuna. Skip the avocado here, since it adds softness where you already have plenty.
3. The Big John
The Big John is roast beef, ham, provolone, onion, lettuce, tomato, and mayo, and it is the sandwich regulars point to when they want lunch to actually hold them until dinner. It is the biggest single-sandwich build on the standard board.
Two fixes make it better. Say scoop the bread, which means the crew lifts off the top slice and removes the soft center so you get more filling per bite. Then ask for extra roast beef or extra cheese if you want the protein ratio to match the name.
One thing to manage: mayo plus a large build makes the sandwich heavy late in the day. Oil and vinegar instead of mayo, or a half order of dressing on the side, keeps it lighter without changing the sandwich.
4. The Chicken Salami with basil and tomato
Chicken and salami together is a strong, salty pairing that most people have not ordered on purpose. The club version pairs chicken and salami with provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayo, which is already a lot of overlapping flavor.
Balance comes from the vegetables, not from cutting back on the meat. Ask for extra onion and extra Jimmy Peppers, and hold the mayo or switch to oil and vinegar. The onion and pepper cut the salt; the mayo only adds to it.
Fresh herbs are not part of the standard build, so treat basil as a request rather than a given. If your store will add it, one small handful of basil on a chicken salami sub is the single best upgrade nobody orders.
5. The Pepe
The Pepe is ham, provolone, onion, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and mustard, which makes it the most ordinary-looking sandwich on the board and the most reliable one. It is a ham and cheese sub that travels, reheats, and never surprises you.
The simple changes do the most here. Toast the bread so the provolone melts, add a few Jimmy Peppers for heat, and ask for the mayo and mustard to go on separately if you are not eating it right away.
For more substance, add bacon or avocado. Just one, not both, or the sandwich turns into something heavier than a lunch should be.
6. The J.J.
The J.J. is roast beef, turkey, ham, provolone, cucumber, lettuce, tomato, and mayo on the bread. Three meats in one sub is the value case: it feeds you further than a single-meat order at the same rough size.
The menu-hack strategy is restraint. Most people load it up with four add-ons and then complain it was too much. Pick two: extra meat, or extra vegetables, not both.
Go easy on the sauces. With three meats and provolone already in there, a light drizzle of oil and vinegar works better than another layer of mayo, and it keeps the bread from going soft.
7. The Hawaiian
The Hawaiian is ham, provolone, pineapple, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and mustard. It is the sweet and savory option, and the reason it works is that the acid in the pineapple balances the salt in the ham and cheese.
If the sweetness is too much for you, ask to hold the pineapple or have it on the side. You keep the ham, provolone, and mustard, which is a Pepe with a different lunch attitude.
For more texture, add cucumber or extra onion, and request the bread toasted. Toasted bread and ham is the part people remember about this order, so do not skip it.
8. The Billy Club
The Billy Club is turkey, ham, provolone, cucumber, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and mustard. It sits in the middle of the menu: enough meat to be satisfying, enough vegetables to not be heavy.
That makes it the best pick when a group is ordering and nobody wants to fight. Ask for easy lettuce, which is thinner and crisper than the regular, so the sandwich keeps its structure longer.
Add a cheese of your choice, or extra pickles for crunch, and you have tuned it for your own preferences without leaving the menu. The dressing on the side is worth requesting if the sandwich will sit for more than an hour.
9. The Vito
The Vito is salami and provolone with lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, and oil and vinegar. It is the coldest, most Italian-leaning build on the board, and one of the cheapest ways to get a genuinely different sandwich week to week.
The best topping here is the Jimmy Peppers. Salami and provolone are both salty and soft, and the peppers add heat and acid that the sandwich is otherwise short on.
Ask for the oil and vinegar to stay on the side and hold the mayo. That combination keeps the flavor without the sogginess, and the salami tastes cleaner with a little acid than it does buried in mayo.
10. The Muffaletta
The Muffaletta is the odd one out: an olive salad, salami, ham, provolone, Swiss, tomato, oregano basil seasoning, mayo, and oil and vinegar, all on a dense round Muffaletta bread instead of the standard French bread. It is a full meal in one piece of bread.
It is the right call when you are feeding a group or want lunch that lasts. Ask for a half, because one whole Muffaletta is heavy and a half plus a soup hits the spot better.
To lean it out, skip the mayo and let the oregano basil seasoning and vinegar carry it. To lean it in, ask for extra olives and extra Jimmy Peppers, which is the difference between a rich sandwich and an unmanageable one.
11. The #2 with a Snack-Style Upgrade
Any of the meat and cheese club sandwiches can be turned into a better lunch with one change: cut the portion, add a side. Ask for a Slim, which is the same sandwich on fewer slices of bread, and the meat-to-bread ratio improves immediately.
Numbers on the board shift from time to time, so name the sandwich as well as the number. Ask for the smoked ham club by name, then add vegetables: extra onion, extra Jimmy Peppers, extra pickles, and easy lettuce.
On the sauce, choose one and stick with it. Oil and vinegar is the better pick on a ham and provolone build because it lifts the meat rather than coating it. Adding mayo on top of a sauce you already like is how a decent sub becomes greasy.
12. The Build-Your-Own Lunch Hack
The most reliable trick is to stop starting from a named sandwich. Build in four steps instead: one protein, one vegetable, one spread, one crunchy add-on. Named sandwiches are just those four choices pre-made for you.
For example: roast beef, tomato, oil and vinegar, extra pickles. Or turkey, cucumber, mustard, Jimmy Peppers. Both take the same thirty seconds at the counter and neither inherits a topping you did not want.
Add-ons cost extra, so pick two, not five. The Unwich and the chopped and restuffed version are the two build changes that matter most: one removes the bread, the other redistributes the filling so you get more of it per bite.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Jimmy John’s have a secret menu?
There is no separate printed secret menu. What looks like a secret menu is the standard board plus the substitutions the counter already allows: Unwich instead of bread, Scooped bread with the center removed, bread held, any topping doubled, dropped, or moved to the side, and the chopped and restuffed build. If a named item is not on the board at your store, ask for the ingredients and the crew can usually build it.
What is the viral Jimmy John’s order?
The order that keeps circulating is the chopped and restuffed Italian. You order a No. 7 Spicy East Coast Italian or a No. 9 Italian Night Club, then ask for the fillings dumped onto a cutting board, chopped, and stuffed back into the bread. The reason it works is distribution: the same amount of meat and cheese ends up in every bite instead of pooling in the middle.
What are the freebies at Jimmy John’s?
The freebies are mostly loyalty items rather than spontaneous ones. There is a birthday reward for a sandwich, rewards points that accumulate with spending, app-only offers, and the day-old loaf sold at a steep discount near closing. Point totals and offers vary by program and by store, so check the app or your account before you assume anything is waiting for you.
How do I get day-old bread and how do I keep it fresh?
Ask for it at the counter near closing time and expect to be told yes or no, because availability depends on the store and the day. Unsold loaves get marked down rather than thrown out, which is why regulars keep asking. At home, keep it in a paper or cloth bag on the counter for a day, then freeze it tightly and toast from frozen to bring the crust back.
What is the best Unwich at Jimmy John’s?
The No. 7 Spicy East Coast Italian is the strongest Unwich because the meats and provolone already carry flavor and the wrap does not need to contribute any. The No. 9 Italian Night Club works too, but ask for the mayo and oil and vinegar on the side so the wrap does not go soggy. Skip anything with heavy dressing if the lettuce leaf is the only structure holding it together.
What are the unwritten rules for ordering at Jimmy John’s?
Three habits cover most of it. Say the exact words: hold the, on the side, no mayo, substitute, double the meat, and Unwich are all understood. Order by menu number and name both, since numbers shift. And add-ons are charged individually, so the second and third are worth it while the fifth is rarely a good deal.
Conclusion
Start with the Plain Smoked Turkey and Swiss if you want something familiar, and hold the mayo, add avocado, and add the Jimmy Peppers. From there, work down the list: the Big John for a filling lunch, the No. 9 Italian Night Club chopped and restuffed for flavor, and the day-old loaf near closing for the cheapest dinner you will find all week.
None of this leaves the menu. It is the same counter, the same bread, and the same crew, just a sentence longer than the one most people say.